January 9: Purgatory Mountain, Seasons of Change, Kim Addonizio, "Man on a Corner," Confessions of Saint Marty

Once I stood on a humped rock on nearby Purgatory Mountain, watching through binoculars the great autumn hawk migration below, until I discovered that I was in danger of joining the hawks on a vertical migration of my own.  I was used to binoculars, but not, apparently, to balancing on humped rocks while looking through them.  I staggered.  Everything advanced and receded by turns; the world was full of unexplained foreshortenings and depths.  A distant huge tan object, a hawk the size of an elephant, turned out to be the browned bough of a nearby loblolly pine.  I followed a sharp-shinned hawk against a featureless sky, rotating my head unawares as it flew, and when I lowered the glass a glimpse of my own looming shoulder sent me staggering.  What prevents the men on Palomar from falling, voiceless and blinded, from their tiny, vaulted chairs?

I chose this passage from Annie Dillard simply for the name "Purgatory Mountain."  It appeals to my Catholic upbringing.  It makes me think of a mountain designed by Dante.  Circles of rock, reaching upward toward the clouds and sun and moon and stars.  Also, Dillard's distorted view of the migrating  hawks, the pine branch as big as an elephant.  It's all about perspective.

Last night, I was not in the greatest frame of mind, as evidenced by my blog post.  Too much to do, too much on my mind.  As my four or five Constant Readers know, I don't deal well with endings and beginnings.  Yet, my life is a stream of stops and starts.  Semesters begin.  Semesters end.  Change is the one constant in the medical office in which I toil.  Procedures and policies and duties are amended, appended, addended ad infinitum.

Sometimes, my life strikes me as purgatorial.  I have to endure seasons of change in order to have seasons of joy.  Work--early mornings, moody coworkers, impatient patients, needy students, elitist colleagues, all of it--can seem a little penitential.  Yes, I know it's all a matter of perspective.  Punishment or blessing, two sides of the same coin, like the pet of a homeless man.  Desperation and love sitting on the same soiled blanket.

Right now, I'm at the base of Purgatory Mountain, gazing up at the circling hawks.  Vacation is dwindling.  Work is looming.  Ditto teaching.  There's a snowstorm blowing into the Upper Peninsula tonight.  More shoveling.  And then arctic air for days.

Time for Saint Marty to start climbing.

Man on a Corner

by:  Kim Addonizio

The man with the golden retriever is still sitting

Against the bank’s brick wall on his blanket, while

all along the street the store owners are quitting,

a florist carrying in bouquets, the mild

fragrance of the flowers a brief antidote

to the exhaust of a bus, just releasing

its passengers; they swirl around him, like notes

of some random music, scattering in the increasing

dusk. Now the prone dog lifts its head

and looks at him, as though a sudden thought’s

occurred to it; the man still slumps, dead

or dreaming, figure in a drama not

of the dog’s making, but all it knows

of love; it shifts, sighs, lays its head close.

Confessions of Saint Marty

September 20: Good to be Children, Forfeits, Kids

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music.  After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself...

This little passage comes smack dab in the middle of Scrooge's wanderings in the world of the Christmas ghosts.  Scrooge is at his nephew Fred's house with the Ghost of Christmas Present, watching Fred's guests enjoy themselves at Fred's Christmas party.  As the above sentences imply, the gathered men and women behave like children, throwing themselves into the eating and drinking and singing and playing with abandon.

My kids keep me young in heart.  They force me out of my adult life of money and work and teaching.  They make me see everything new, as if it's just snowed and the world is white and fresh and untouched. 

Yesterday, I was at Burger King with my family.  My daughter was in between dance classes.  As we were sitting in the play area by the window, a homeless man came up to the garbage can outside and started rummaging through its contents.  My daughter watched him for a few seconds and then said, "What is he doing, daddy?"

I sat there for a few seconds, not sure what to say to her.  Do I tell her that the world can be a really hard place, with hunger and poverty and mental illness and homelessness?  Do I tell her that we're lucky to have a roof over our heads and warm clothes and enough money to buy a burger every once in a while?  Do I tell her that, even in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, on the shores of Lake Superior, people starve and freeze to death?

Finally, I said, "That man is probably hungry, sweety, and he's looking for pop cans to return for money.  Or something to eat."  I thought about the Founder of Christmas, saw him in that man at the garbage can, scrounging through old French fries and scraps of hamburger.

Saint Marty hopes he always sees things like his daughter does, with wonder and amazement and compassion.  A compassion to feed the hungry of the world, remembering the homeless Founder, born in manure and hay and cow breath and starlight.

What my daughter saw last night at Burger King

June 17: Homeless Man, Saint Harvey, Lost Tooth

In the area in which I live, a homeless man died of exposure in the woods this past week.  Usually, in early June in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it can get chilly at night, but not so cold it would kill somebody.  Homelessness is not an issue most people think about in the U.P.  We have our share of group homes for people with mental illnesses, and we also have a low-income hotel, as well.  However, when you walk down the streets of our towns, there aren't people begging on the corners or pushing loaded shopping carts around.  Homeless people live in the big cities--Detroit, Lansing, Flint.  Not along the shores and beaches of Lake Superior.

Not in my hometown

When I attended a NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) meeting last year in Marquette, one of the people there (let's call her Tina) had a brother who was schizophrenic.  Tina's brother wasn't taking his medications, and she was at the end of her rope.  Until her brother tried to harm himself or someone else, Tina couldn't get her brother hospitalized.  It's one of the horrible truths in the treatment of the mentally ill in this country.  In the effort to protect the rights of a person with a mental illness, that person has to try to kill somebody before he can be helped.  My coworker, who also attends NAMI meetings, told me yesterday that she thinks the homeless man who died in the woods was Tina's brother.

Tina's brother slipped through the cracks, the victim of a system that was set up to protect him.  He died, homeless in the woods, his civil rights intact.  I understand the reasons behind the laws, but I have also been in a situation like Tina.  My wife needed help, was obviously out-of-control, but her therapist, her doctor, couldn't tell me anything.  They just had to let her march down a self-destructive path.  Thank God it turned out better than it did for Tina's brother.

Today's saint, Harvey, was born blind.  His father died when Harvey was an infant, and his mother gave him to a "holy man" to raise.  Eventually, the holy man sent him to a monastic school to continue his religious education.  Harvey eventually became Abbot of the monastery, even though he was never ordained a priest.  He's famous for being a wandering minstrel and performing miracles as an exorcist.

In today's world, a wandering, blind, holy exorcist would probably end up freezing to death in the woods.  At the very least, Harvey would be one of those people you avoid in subways and bus terminals.  Poor.  Homeless.  Hungry.  When I think of people like Harvey and Tina's brother, I find myself a little humbled.   My first thought isn't about their mothers or uncles or brothers.  My first thought is how lucky I am to not be them.  My second thought is how lucky I am to have a family member with a mental illness who is relatively stable, healthy, and happy.

My third thought is about my daughter, who called me this morning to tell me she lost another tooth, and my son.  I think about the capacity for mental illness they've inherited.  I pray that they won't end up homeless in the cold woods. 

Saint Marty prays they will end up performing miracles with their lives.

My kids, reaching for the stars